In today’s digital age and globalized world, long gone is the 9-5 business day that used to be standard for most workers. While today’s fluid work environment offers an incredible amount of flexibility and creative options for both employers and employees, at the same time, there is increased urgency, pressure and expectations that work get work done and delivered fast, at the highest quality and at the lowest cost.

Companies of all sizes need to be able to provide their clients with what they want and need quickly – because if not, someone else will. While large companies with deep resources may have on staff enough employees of a varied nature to satisfy client demands for quality, speed and cost, it is a bit trickier for smaller businesses with more limited resources.

Imagine a situation in which a client approaches your business with a lucrative project that requires a graphic designer who specifically has expertise in animation. Although this project is a great opportunity for the business, it probably doesn’t make sense to hire another graphic designer with these specific skills (when you already have a great designer on your team) and to invest in training and paying benefits when this is a one time project. At the same time, though, the small business owner does not want to turn down this opportunity.

What is a small business owner to do?

One practical and cost effective solution is to hire a freelancer or independent contractor. Although this may deviate from the way the small business is used to operating, there are some major benefits to be gained by hiring out.

Save Money

It is well known that oftentimes full time employees are not actually working all of those hours they are being paid for. On the other hand, freelancers only charge you for the hours they work so a business may end up spending less money for the same work, even when taking into consideration a higher hourly rate. Plus, there are great apps out there to help keep track of freelancers’ hours to guarantee that an hour worked is an hour paid. Some to check out include Toggl, RescueTime, Harvest, Hubstaff, Time Doctor and Timely.

Save On Time

If a freelancer accepts a job chances are he or she is highly motivated to get the project done on time and done well. Since most freelancers’ business model relies on repeat customers, freelancers can be counted on to get the job done promptly, maybe even before deadline.

Save On (Office) Space

Hiring a freelancer means you don’t need to find space for another person to sit in your already cramped office. Not needing to find a larger workspace means business owners will save money on rent. The freelancer will work from home, from the coffee shop, from another country – it doesn’t matter as long as the job gets completed.

Get More Experience

Experienced freelancers have done their time working with a variety of different companies and many come well equipped with a toolbox of eclectic skills that will benefit your company and impress your client.

Gain Access to Global Candidates

Hiring a freelancer allows you to transcend borders and timezones. They can work while you are sleeping and even on weekends, helping to speed up a project or free up time for salaried employees to work on other priorities during the workday.

Overall, hiring a freelancer can give your small business the advantages of motivation and fresh skills, while saving your business valuable resources – time and money being two critical resources that all small businesses owners are seeking to maximize.

One word of caution, however. Both employers and workers need to be clear on who, according to the law, is classified as a freelancer. Sometimes, there are situations in which employers may classify employees as independent contractors when in fact the law sees them as employees. If this is the case, these workers may be eligible to make claims for employee rights and benefits. To prevent any misunderstanding or legal issues down the line, it is best for a worker and employer to execute a written contract that defines the relationship prior to beginning any work.

Lee Madison writes about financial topics relevant to small business owners. She is director of content at Yellowstone Capital LLC.

A recent article in a UK newspaper claimed 1.6 million Brits currently lease their car – but how many actually understand what they’re doing?

When I first leased a car, I had no idea how it worked. I assumed a lease was something you got on a retail building and not a car!

Don’t let the complexity scare you though. Leasing can be a practical and affordable form of car finance if you take the time to get to know how it works. In this blog, I’ll run you through what leasing is, how it works and a couple different forms of leasing finance.

What is a lease?

To understand the difference between leasing and buying, you need to have a look at what you’re actually paying for in a lease.

When you buy a car outright, your payment covers the full value that the vehicle is worth. Once you’ve paid the full price (either immediately or over time), you become the legal owner of the car.

With leasing, you essentially ‘rent’ a car for a given period of time and return it at the end of your contract. Unlike buying a car, you’re never the legal owner of the car, although you are usually its registered keeper.

Why lease? Because depreciation hurts

Leasing is an attractive option for a lot of people because it eliminates one of the major problems that comes with owning a car – the cost of depreciation (depreciation is how quickly a car loses value).

According to the AA, new cars can lose up to 10% of their value the moment you drive them off the forecourt. Worse, the worst of the bunch can lose up to 60% of their value in the first year of ownership!

With these motors, if you’re planning on selling your car after a few years, you’re in for a shock when you check what it’s worth.

Contract Hire

Contract hire (more commonly known as leasing) is an arrangement where someone ‘rents’ a new car for a set period of time from a dealer. During the contract, the individual pays just enough to pay off the car’s depreciation. (Plus a little profit for the dealer, of course.) At the end of the contract, the individual returns the car to the dealer and they both go their separate ways.

With leasing deals, you aren’t the legal owner of the car but you are the registered keeper. That means you have get the car regularly serviced and keep it in a good condition.

The best thing about leasing compared to other finance options is the monthly payments, which tend to be significantly lower. That’s because, as I already mentioned, you’re only paying off the depreciation. You can also trade your car in every few years for a brand new model!

Tom Butcher worked behind the scenes in print journalism for years until he discovered the wonders of the web. He writes for several publications, covering the finance, automotive and tech sectors. At the moment, he is helping LeaseFetcher teach the world about car leasing.

To be a successful businessman, you have to be a pro in the sector you have chosen. It can be a groceries business or a factory business. What you are working within your business doesn’t matter as long as it is legal. But, how you are working and what results you are bringing out of it, matters. And we can agree on this, for better results, you have to be a good performer. To do so, you also need a good plan for your business. Let’s talk about the same thing in the trading business. You also have to be an efficient performer in this business. But, for some people, it is tough to do so because they might not have any idea about how to work efficiently. We will help you (confused traders) with some necessary qualities of the pro traders.

An effective trading edge

Remember, the most important thing in your trading business is your trading edge or trading strategy. No matter, how successful a trader, you have to understand that the most credit of that achievement of his goes to the trading strategy. Yes, other variables do contribute too. But the most important thing is the trading strategy. But, it was not the same when that trader started in this business. With time it got refined more and more. And eventually, it has reached the position to make a trader pro. So, you also have to work with your trading strategy. Even from the beginning, it has to be made by you.

The concept of trading

The concept of trading greatly varies from traders to traders. The successful Singaporean traders always consider this as their business. They never take any chance based on emotions since every action taken by them has a direct impact on their profit factors. If you get involved in options trading, you will understand the importance of trading discipline. The rookie traders always love to challenge themselves. Knowingly or unknowingly they trade with emotions and blows up their account. They don’t really know the key concept of trading. You are here to save your investment not to make your financial conditions much worse. If you think this as your business, you will be able to understand the structure of the investment business. Try to aim for high-risk reward trade setup as it will help you to overcome your loss. Never trade without having a clear trade setup.

Efficient planning for trades

Now you have made your strategy, it is time for you to make plans for your trades. Because every individual trade needs the care to be executed properly. Otherwise, there will be no good result for you after closing a trade. Right when you decide to make a trade, you have to plan for it. And the plan could be for anything that is related to your trading. Like for example, it can be when you are placing your trade or your trading routine. Or most impotent of them all, it can be the money management of your trade. In fact, this is so important that it can save your trading account from vanishing.

Realistic profit estimation

A pro trader probably has spent a lot of time in this business. So, his or her experience of it will be much more than anyone joining recently. Even that trader will understand when there is going to be a mistake by him or her. Because it is also known to that trader. And, with all those experience there will be no place for a pro trader to think on estimation. The brain of that trader will thing about fact and reality, not imagination. And his or her decisions will always be on what is visual in the price charts. And, that is a really good quality of a pro trader. You should try to motivate your mind on thinking about it too.

Try, for a moment, to think of a corporation that compares to Apple. What company has the name recognition, branding, and carefully constructed image that Apple has built over the last decade of total technological dominance?

The Leader of the Pack

The answer, of course, is that Apple has no real competition. Their rise to power has been slow and steady, but the cell phone industry analysis is indisputable. As of mid-2015, CNet reports that about 100 million Americans use iPhones. That’s roughly 1/3 of the population of the United States.

If you walk into your local coffee shop, you’ll immediately note the dominance of the MacBook as the preferred notebook computer for telecommuters across the US. Want a tablet? The iPad is the obvious choice.

The popularity of a product is one of the most important variables in determining whether there is money to be made in servicing and repairing that product. Consider other household goods, appliances, or even vehicles? If a car manufacturer produces a dominant model, and that model is purchased and driven by 1/3 of the US population, how many other services professionals can benefit from that popularity? Mechanics will exclusively service the model. Aftermarket part manufacturers will build and distribute exclusively for the model and re-sellers will benefit from exclusively carrying the model, since such a huge percentage of the population will purchase it.

Using the auto analogy helps to demonstrate the significant opportunity that exists for an iPhone repair franchise. Sure, cars cost more. But the impact of Apple’s popularity is difficult to comprehend without thinking in terms of other, similarly valuable products.

Apple Franchise Markets are Everywhere

One of the secrets to successful franchising is selecting an appropriate market in which to operate a new business. For some franchises, that decision can be tricky. Food preferences can depend on region. Educational and fitness needs are largely dependent on demographics like age and income. But Apple products, with their complete market domination, are present in every metro area and suburb, every college campus and retirement community. Uses vary, certainly. The average MacBook pro user will differ significantly from the average owner of an iPhone manufactured three years ago. Their repair needs, however, are universal.

Refreshed Apple Products as an Income Stream

Making money with an iPhone repair franchise is possible in part because of the multiple income streams that are generated by a familiarity with the products and the capacity to fix them. One of those income streams is the sale of refreshed products, which come in as trades for customers in search of an upgrade. Although we’re accustomed to hearing about how high-tech goods are out of date as soon as they are purchased, there are several reasons that consumers have proven to be quite interested in purchasing used or refurbished Apple electronics.

Upgrades are largely software based. From one generation to the next, cell phones, tablets, and computers no longer change physically by leaps and bounds so that they quickly become obsolete. Instead, Apple (along with its competitors), rolls out downloadable software updates that keep even older hardware running for many years.

New products are prohibitively expensive. Thousands of dollars for laptops. Hundreds of dollars for even the cheapest cell phone in the lineup. Apple products are extremely expensive, but that has done nothing but whet the public’s appetite for them. Middle-income consumers have kept the prices of used and refurbished Apple products steadily high for years, with online and iPhone repair franchise profits significantly greater, as a percentage of original retail pricing, than any other comparable goods. A car driven off the lot loses a third of its value immediately. A brand new iPhone does no such thing.

Many repairs are easy. Broken screens and dead home buttons are often enough to send consumers—accustomed to instant gratification from their expensive devices—running to order a new tablet or phone. But the repairs are often simple and largely cosmetic, which means excellent profit margins on refreshed items. Frustrations with non-working features or broken exteriors often mean upgrades for buyers, but for an iPhone repair franchise they mean quick turnover, minimal investment, and exceptional profits.

Selling refreshed Apple products is worth investigating for any savvy entrepreneur as a personal experiment—list an item online for sale—something in a desk drawer that you’ll never use again—and look how quickly buyers flock to purchase your used electronics. It’s a lesson that warrants reflection.

India’s popularity among low cost mobile manufacturers like Xiaomi, OnePlus and others is big enough to make the country their highest priority. The main reason for this surge is, among many other things, the fact that Indians prefer prepaid connections more than post paid. While the lucrative recharge offers make prepaid a better option for cost sensitive con-sumers, what this translates to the low cost mobile manufacturers is a market free from telco-subsidised iPhones and other high-end phones.

Indians have too much love for prepaid and it is only going to grow stronger. This is in con-trast to developed markets where unlocked gsm phones barely have a market. In developed countries like UK and US, telcos heavily subsidise high end mobiles to acquire long term subscribers in a bid to recover the amount through the course of the term. These connections typically come with a two year contract, with a monthly rental that help make the business profitable. Most customers in these countries do not seem to mind as long as they get their brand new high end smartphones. This is a long shot in India where even postpaid consumers pay a premium price for flagship devices.

It does raise the question though – are you better off using a prepaid connection or would a postpaid arrangement serve you better? Like any other question like this one, the answer does, to some extent, depend on who you are and what are your needs. Surely, you can not work with a prepaid connection if you work in Sales. However, there is a large group of mobile users who are happy with mobile internet and barely even make calls.

For anyone looking to have more control over their bills and a more clearer understanding of their usage, Prepaid is still the way to go. Convenience wise, however, postpaid remains the choice to make especially now that most telcos offer auto debit of monthly bills. It sure will be interesting to see if Indian telcos will start offering US style contracts here and how that’ll change preference.